I've done something silly! Sonar trouble

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Member Since: Jun 21, 2008

I've got a new laptop which I wanted to use for recording. It's the Acer 8920 which has a Realtek sound card in it.

I've come to realize that I'm basically going to have a lot of trouble with Realtek, so I'm going to get an external USB card.

Which would you advise to get? I want to record with a mic going into a mixing desk and then that goes out into the line in. I got this laptop as the specs are really high which will be good for the ridiculoud amount of VST's I use.

Is there another program I could use? Or maybe settings I could change? If I can't do either of those which USB card should I get? Thanks in advance! :)

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Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jun 21, 2008 02:21 pm

You might look into the Line 6 UX-1 or UX-2 if that is all you are going to do. They are USB interfaces but also have guitar,bass and microphone pre amp modeling as well. You cna then avoid a mixer all together if you want going that route.

M-Audio also has a couple of pretty decent USB interfaces that work fairly well. But the Line6 drivers are a bit more stable in the laptop area.

Both units have ASIO drivers which will allow you to achieve pretty low latency.

One warning though from your statement about running a major amount of VST pluggins. You had better have a minimum of 2 gigs of ram, 4 would be even better.


Member
Since: Jun 21, 2008


Jun 21, 2008 06:03 pm

I think I'd prefare to still use my mixer with a mic. The Toneport looks really good for metal stuff though, thanks for recommending it :)

I pretty much want to be able to record vocals, guitar and bass, basically anything that's micked up and have them running along next to the VST's.

The system is more than capable of running it all, it's a core 2 duo and I have 4 gig of ram aswell and 320gb hdd for all those giant libraries. I upgraded because my last pc could only handle 2gb ram, but now I'm stuck with a crappy sound card :\

So basically I want something I can plug the mixer into, I'll look into the M-Audio options now.

Any specific models anyone could recommend would be appreciated as I know nothing at all about external things and want to getrecording as soon as possible.

I'll be doing metal, alternative (radiohead style i suppose) and dance stuff if that helps.

Thanks :)

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jun 21, 2008 06:11 pm

www.m-audio.com/index.php...D=USBinterfaces

The Fast Track Pro or the Mobile Pre will probably do good for what you are looking at doing.

There are others out there from other manufacturer's as well but these are probably the most stable next to the Line 6 gear.

And just to point out. You don't have to use the amp sim's for guitar if you don't want them. I use it for everything from acoustic to blues and jazz sounds.

It is a killer interface even without the added goodies. Having the microphone pre amp sims is a really big benefit here.

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